Please accept our apologies for not getting this information out much
sooner. We all recognize how important the selection of a permanent
executive director is for the Pacifica Foundation, and as such it is
also important that everyone know what the process has been and will be
from here on out.

First, a little background. When the interim board was created out of
the settlement agreement last December we were charged with dealing with
the hiring of a new executive director. At the time, Joanne Meredith had
been the acting ED having taken that position after Bessie Wash resigned
last fall. We all -- including Joanne -- knew that she would not stay on
but we did not know that she would resign with two weeks of the Interim
Board being seated. The day before the mid-January board meeting in NYC
Joanne informed us that she was leaving the job effective immediately.
We found ourselves needing to ask someone to step in right away as the
interim or acting ED until we sorted things out and developed a process
to make the permanent hire. As everyone knows, Dan Coughlin was able and
willing to step in at that time. There was no assumption that he would
apply for the permanent position and there was no restriction that he
not apply.all of that was left open.

The new Interim Board set up an ED Search Committee on its very first
meeting/conference call on December 29, 2001. Marion Barry was selected
as the chair of the committee and the other members included Teresa
Allen, Leslie Cagan, David Fertig, Ray Laforest, Bert Lee and Carol
Spooner. At the January meeting George Barnstone was added to the
committee.

The committee has met a number of times via conference calls and once in
person (in Los Angeles the weekend of the Board meeting). There were
differences on the committee about how quickly we needed to move. An
initial decision to announce the job and call for resumes in a very
short amount of time led to a relatively small pool of people applying.
The committee realized that the search for applicants had been far from
complete and so we agreed to put together a new timeline and do a more
thorough search.

An ad was written (see text below) and placed in papers and on web sites
around the country (see list following text of ad). The deadline of May
10th for resumes to come in was set in order for the committee to have
enough time to sort through those resumes, determine who invite to a
first round of interviews, and then select three finalists from that
pool - all before the next meeting of the Interim Board. The selection
of the permanent ED must be done by the full Board and so our time line
for this process was developed in order to coincide with this upcoming
meeting.

We received 65 applications from around the country. From those, nine
people were selected for initial interviews. Because the committee
members and applicants are scattered around the country we agreed that
not everyone on the committee would be involved in all of these
interviews. We decided that each person would be interviewed by 2 of the
committee members being there in person and one committee member would
call in. For the most part this did happen; but in one case the
interviewee and the committee members were all on the phone and in
another two cases the person was only interviewed by the two people in
person.

The ED Search Committee on Thursday, June 13th to share the results of
the interviews and decide which of these three people we will invite for
a final set of interviews. References will be called and a background
check will be done on the three finalists. These will be done by the
full Board on the morning of Friday, June 21st in closed session. The
Board will then make its decision about who to offer the job to. A
report from the Search Committee will be included on the agenda of the
open Board meeting that same evening, and that is when the public
announcement about who has been hired will be made.

We are not releasing the names of the three finalists right now because
we are confirming that all three are still interested in the job. As
soon as this is done we will send out another notice with the names and
the jobs they presently have.

The Search Committee also agreed on the following set of criteria to
guide our deliberations for selecting people to be included in both the
first round of interviews and then as finalists. Those criteria are:
1. Familiarity with Pacifica: mission, history, challenges we face
2. Vision for Pacifica in the future
3. Experience in the progressive social change and/or peace movements
4. Management experience and style of management
5. Experience in multi-cultural settings and working with diverse
constituencies
6. Fund raising and budget management skills/experience
7. Work in radio or other media outlets, especially independent and
alternative
8. Willingness to live in Berkeley and available to travel to all signal
areas

Finally, there has been a request made from a number of listener
activists that we convene a public event before the final decision is
made. The committee agreed to convene such an event at 7 pm on the
evening of Thursday, June 20th. Each of the finalists for the position
will be asked to attend and make a brief (no more than 10 minutes)
presentation. Then a moderator will pose questions to the finalists and
they will each have an opportunity to respond. In addition, those who
attend the event will be asked to caucus at the beginning of the evening
to decide what five questions they would like to pose from the audience,
and who will ask the questions. (We have set aside 30 minutes for this
to take place.) We will not take a straw poll, a sense of the body, a
vote or anything like that during or after the evening. This will be an
opportunity for people to meet and hear the finalists, but the decision
about who to hire will be made by the Interim Pacifica National Board.

As we said at the very beginning, we apologize for not getting all of
this information out to you sooner.

--------------------

AD FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR POSITION

Pacifica Foundation seeks new Executive Director. Founded in 1948 by
anti- war and social justice activists, Pacifica is the only
listener-sponsored, community-based radio network in the nation, with
stations in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, D.C. and New
York City. The Executive Director will provide leadership during period
of transition to democratic governance and accountable decision-making
processes. Candidates must have demonstrated organizational and
leadership experience, the ability to work in collaboration with others,
be a skillful consensus builder, and be comfortable with controversy and
diverse points of view. Candidates should possess excellent business
skills necessary to oversee a complex organization (human resource
activities, budgeting, fiscal and investment management, etc.),
experience working with diverse cultural and political coalitions, and a
familiarity with community-based organizing and democratic process.
Experience with radio and progressive/alternative media a plus. Letters
of interest and resumes due by May 10, 2002. Mail to Human Resources,
Pacifica Foundation, 2390 Champlain St., NW, Washington, DC 20009, or
fax to (202)588-0561. For additional information please contact Human
Resources at (202) 588-0999 ext 370. EOE

The ad was placed in the following publications (and there might have
been a few more as well), and on the web sites listed. In addition, it
was distributed on several listserves.